we arrived in the morning. and as all the travel book i read said, the Japanese are very kind towards tourists. the weather aren't too cold, 7 degree at the lowest point so i think i didn't have to take out my winter coat just yet.
we're staying at one of the famous backpacker hostel (always recommended in any site) Sakura Hostel. the branch we booked was the one located at Ikebokuro. The Hostel itself was really clean and quite big for "Japan", i mean it fit the three of us and our 3 luggages. But i have to admit, the bathroom was just too small. I can't imagine if a German Guy had to stay there. Even just to turn around to get a toilet paper is a battle, i always ended up hitting the wastafel and the wall.
we were hungry and honestly i wanted to try any Japanese breakfast, but yeah, i had to greet my old travel sponsor, Uncle Ronald McDonald. Back in Jakarta i was afraid of Japanese English, no offense, but they aren't really keen of it. so i just did the "point the picture" game every time i want to order or need something. in this case of course the McDonald menu. what pissed me off a little bit was that my mom, she's the kind that aren't really adventurous and it's really hard to find a food that she truly loves. in the end, she always asked "can i get that without the pickles." "i want extra fries." "i want the coffee to be less strong." and so on. i snapped and said, "we're lucky enough they understood that we need coffee and hamburger, let's not make it more difficult than it already is." so she shut up and drank her first black bland coffee.
one thing i notice from McDonald here. It looks like an internet cafe, there're only 5 tables that could hold people that tried to eat together, and the rest was just a little table enough to hold one tray. That's it. Imagine how fast their life should revolve that they don't have enough time to chat. Or to socialize.
An Internet cafe-McDonald
After the quick lunch we went to Asakusa. Getting on and off the metro line in Japan is easy, especially they already translated their (katakana/hiragana?) into latin so i could read it. I bought the wrong metro pass, that i could not use some of the metro services. (so here's the info. there are several companies that run the metro, most of the tourist attractions in Tokyo could be reached by the Metro card only, but if you're planning on going to Harajuku then you must buy a JR line ticket. Harajuku itself located in the same line between Shibuya and Shinjuku, maybe in the Summer, when the energy is all there, you can try to walk from Shibuya through Shinjuku via Harajuku. But forget that in winter.)
Back to Asakusa, i took a picture in front of the "shit building" and also some other pictures too(wont be able to show you since i lost the camera.) finally i saw the rickshaw that i always read in Kariage-kun comics with the abang-abang struggled to say some words he memorized well in English--Take you around, good price, very nice.
Shit Building, Asakusa
I haven't really done my research on Asakusa, what i knew, it's one of the place the tourists go to when they're in Tokyo. Because Asakusa is the place to get Japanese souvenirs. I was planning to buy some postcards to send to my friends but there aren't any, so i tried to get the some other souvenir instead. Had to cancel my plan, Dear God, everything was so expensive!!
Later we went to Shibuya. Bought some cake, some of my mom's friends told her that she must try every dessert she could find because Japanese desserts are the best. It was! I bought myself a soft cheesecake that melts in my mouth, the great thing was, it's not "mahteg". Took a picture with Hachiko near the Shibuya crossing and crossed the famous crossing. We strolled around until we got tired and decide to had Yoshinoya as our dinner (my mom wanted something familiar). It cost 350 Yen per person for a huge bowl of Japanese Curry. (another info, the Yoshinoya in Japan really looks like warteg in here. another exaggeration of a fast food franchise by our nation.)
Tokyo Starbucks Mug. (i'm a bit upset the don't have the old version.)
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